Venom (Rated R)
by ProdigalSnake
Summary: While investigating one of Carlton Drake's experiments, Eddie's body merges with the symbiote Venom. As the dark voice in his head grows louder, will Eddie be able to retain his humanity or will he be twisted into a monster whose hunger knows no bounds? A rewrite of the movie, Venom. Rated R/M for dark themes and violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 – Mayday**

"Life Foundation control, this is LF1. The specimens are secured and we're heading home."

"Roger that LF1, you are a go for reentry."

"Copy that. Initiating reentry sequence. Point 4 by 103 by-OH SHIT! SEAL IT OFF! SEAL IT OFF! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!"

That was the last thing the space control team heard from the LF1 crew before the spacecraft came crashing down through the atmosphere. The magnificent spaceship that had explored the vastness of their universe exploded into a ball of flame as it collided with the Malaysian earth, sending its parts flying in all directions. Local law enforcement, firefighters and paramedics were quick to act, and soon the scene became flooded with people trying to rescue the crew and control the damages.

Carlton Drake, the founder and CEO of the Life Foundation, had immediately dispatched his best men to the crash site as soon as he got news that something had gone wrong. "I don't want to have to wait for a full cleanup just to get a status report," he said impatiently as he marched into the control room.

"We're collecting this data as quickly as possible," said Dr. Dora Skirth, one of Drake's best scientists.

"That's not good enough," said Drake as he brushed her off and turned to the closest person in the room. "Maybe you can tell me what happened?"

"There was some kind of breach. One of the astronauts sent a distress call," the employee responded quickly.

"What about the crew?"

"We're still investigating."

"W-W-Where did it go down?" The lack of information and the seemingly pure incompetence of his space control crew was driving Drake crazy. If someone didn't start giving him answers, he was ready to hire a new one.

"It's 20 kilometers west of Sibu."

Drake took a deep breath and steeled himself, "Did we at least retrieve all the samples?"

"N-No…we have three of them, one of the organisms got out of containment and it's missing. W-We don't know which one."

Drake felt sick as he turned away from the employee for a second in disgust. "You- you don't know which one?" he asked as he chuckled. "One of the first four living organisms we've found in decades of space exploration is missing and you don't know which one?!"

"I-I'm sorry, sir!"

"That's not good enough!" yelled Drake as he slammed his fist on the desk. "Get one of the jets ready!"

"Sir, it takes a day by plane to get from here to Sibu," said Dr. Skirth as she tried to calm him down.

"Our drone jets can do it in one hour."

"Sir, no flight cadet has been able to pilot those, it's too dangerous."

"I built those jets, you really think I can't pilot them?" It would have been ignorance and arrogance had it come out of another person's mouth, but this was Carlton Drake. A genius in all aspects of life and at that moment, nobody doubted that he was speaking the truth.

"The Malaysian government-"

"The Malaysian government can be reminded who sends them their supply of ARBs every month." With that said, Drake exited the room as fast as he came in and just as he promised, he successfully piloted the drone jets and arrived on scene at Sibu.

With his heat suit donned, he fearlessly walked into the burning spaceship that no other rescue worker had approached. The sturdy cockpit of the transport that was designed to travel in and out of the atmosphere was now on the verge of collapsing on itself. He walked past a few piles of ash that may once have been the human astronauts who were in here and saw the broken container that once hosted the extraterrestrial organism.

Suddenly, a grey slime-like creature jumped out from the shadow and tackled him with a force that was incomprehensible for something of that size. Drake felt the air knocked out of his lungs and before he even had time to react, he realized that the slime was trying to tear through his heat suit. The next thing he saw was a column of fire that fell down over him and then darkness.

* * *

Author's Note: I do not own Spider-Man/Venom or any of its characters. This rewrite is based solely on the movie and does not consider any other source material apart from the limited research I have done. This fanfic is simply what I believe would have made for a better Venom movie. Good or bad, reviews are most appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – Eddie Brock**

 _On a peaceful morning in San Francisco, Eddie Brock snored softly as the sun rays poured through the windows of his cozy townhouse. Unbeknownst to him, a hand slowly crept over his face and he was suddenly awoken by the impact of a pillow!_

" _Morning, sunshine," said his longtime girlfriend and fiancée, Anne Weying._

 _Eddie slowly sat up in his bed as he blinked the sleep away and let out a big yawn. They had been up late last night making love and now he was beginning to regret not getting enough sleep for today's meeting. It was then that he saw her, in all but his oversized t-shirt, with coffee in one hand and breakfast in the other._

" _Have I ever told you how perfect you are?" said Eddie as he took the cup and plate from her hand and kissed her._

" _Maybe~, I'm not sure you mean it though, after all, you keep talking about this other woman."_

" _You mean Becky?"_

" _I don't know, is that what her name is?" she said with a grin on her face._

" _Yeah that's her name; she's a fine girl, top of the line! Comfortable, fast, and…has great mileage, really has all that you are looking for in a bike."_

" _Maybe you should marry her instead."_

" _I'm thinking about it."_

 _Anne laughed as she playfully slapped his arm and got dressed for the day. Before leaving, she gave him one last kiss and held his face in her hands. "Don't forget to feed the cat."_

" _Yes, mam, I will not."_

" _Good."_

The loud electric guitar cord shocked him straight out of REM sleep and into reality. He was no longer in his bed with the sunshine pouring into his cozy townhouse. He was in a rundown apartment that was somehow too small for even one person. The only light pouring in was from the unbelievably bright pink neon sign from next door advertising the strip club down the street. To top it all off, he wasn't even in a bed, he was on a fucking air mattress that wasn't even fully pumped.

He crawled out of his miserable mattress and picked up some cotton that was falling out of the sofa chair and stuffed it into his ears to block out the noise. He had tried to reason with his 4 a.m. rock star neighbor but the man didn't seem to understand that there were volume settings below 11 on his amp. He would complain to the landlord if he wasn't already one month behind on his rent. At this point, it was better to lay low and hope she forgot about him rather than complain about another tenant. Eddie sighed as he drank the remaining whiskey left in the cup on his desk.

Where did his life go so wrong?

" _Talk to me Jack, what's with all this secrecy? You've never acted like this, not with those construction giants or tech gurus. Who are we going after?"_

" _We're going after the big fish this time Eddie," said his boss as he turned around to face him. "The only person I trust this with is you. You're the best investigative journalist I know and from the moment I've met you, you've never given me a reason to doubt you." Jack paused before saying in a quiet and deep voice, "We're going after Carlton Drake."_

" _That's what I'm talking about, Jack! Where do we start?"_

" _There is a media day today at the Life Foundation headquarters addressing the recent rocket crash in Malaysia. I want you to go over there and…have a look around."_

That was probably the moment that decided his fate. He should have turned him down; he should have just walked away at that moment. What the hell was he thinking? Taking on someone like Carlton Drake; someone who could buy islands and build rockets with the stroke of a pen, who could cure millions of people with his pharmaceuticals with a single word from his mouth. Someone like that…he never stood a chance.

* * *

Author's Note: This is where the script begins to change. Eddie Brock is one of the best investigative journalists out there and for some reason, he is sent to write a fluff piece in the movie…that makes zero sense!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 – Media Day**

When Carlton Drake woke up, he was no longer amidst the flames of the burning spaceship but on a comfortable bed in a hospital suite. The moment he opened his eyes, countless nurses and doctors crowded around him. They performed a few checks and asked him some questions to see if there were any damages to his psyche or memory. Most of the questions went in one ear and out the other, instead of being glad that he was unharmed, he was perplexed by why he was unharmed. The last thing he remembered was a column of fire falling down onto him and before that the grey…thing that lunged at him.

"What happened to me?" he asked as he tried to sit up but was stopped by one of the doctors.

"Sir, you were knocked unconscious by one of the debris in the spaceship and your heat suit was torn. Luckily, some rescue workers found you in time but not before you suffered some third-degree burns on your chest. We've done some synthetic skin treatment, but the wound will need to be cleansed and the dressings changed. We also have you under some IV antibiotics and pain killers, but you'll need to rest."

Drake complied and laid back down on the bed but not before asking for Dr. Skirth. "Oh thank goodness, we thought we had lost you when your camera feed went off."

"The feed, what did it show before it went off?"

"Not much. You suddenly fell down after entering the cockpit and a steel beam crashed on top of you, that's where the video ended."

"I see…and the last organism?"

"Still unaccounted for. We believe it might have been lost in the fire." Drake tried his best to recall every single detail of his encounter with what seemed like the fourth extraterrestrial organism but decided that if the crew did not find anything even after rescuing him then it was most probable that the organism had perished in the flames.

The scientist lowered her head apologetically, interpreting her boss' silence as disappointment, but to her surprise, Drake's reaction was quite optimistic. "Very well, what is lost is lost. Let's focus our efforts on what we did salvage from the crash. Apart from that, is there anything else of note to report?"

"Yes, the crash sparked a lot of questions from the public regarding the safety of our space exploration program. Our PR team is doing their best but…"

"Tell PR to host a media day conference," said the young CEO as he got up from his bed.

"Sir?"

"I will personally address any concerns they may have."

"Are you sure? The doctors said that you needed rest to recover from your injuries."

"Dr. Skirth, I have three living organisms from outer space sitting in my laboratory that could be the key to improving the human race. Lying here on a hospital bed and doing nothing will probably do me more harm than good," he said as they both shared a light chuckle. "Plus," he said as he clenched his two hands in front of him and felt his usual strength, "I feel fine."

* * *

Reporters from dozens of news stations filtered into the conference room, each looking for a crack in the perfect façade of the prodigy known as Carlton Drake for their own scoop. But Eddie Brock knew that people like Drake could feed the press with horseshit all day. Someone who founded an empire at the age of 24 is going to slip up in front of a random Fox News reporter? No. The real scoop is what you find underneath, it's the stuff that they would never admit in front of a public audience in a million years. It's stuff that may lie beyond locked doors…like this one.

"There you go," said the Life Foundation technician as he got the door opened. "Your access card should be ready to go, Dr. Black."

"Thank you so much, my friend," said Eddie as he patted the young man on his shoulder. "I would say that I would treat you to a beer one of these nights but with your new baby coming in I doubt you'll have much time."

The technician laughed as he began packing up his equipment, "No, thank you for all the advice. If you ever have any more technical troubles, feel free to come by again anytime."

"For sure, have a good one," said Eddie as he waved the poor sucker goodbye. Was it wrong to trick new hires into helping you trespass illegally? Maybe. But one could argue that this was for the greater good. If Carlton Drake's skeletons were exposed, then Bob the technician will be remembered as a hero.

"Now let's see what we can find here." That's when the hard work began, Eddie dug through cabinets after cabinets of documents. But after hours of scouring for any legal documents stamped company private or experiment reports with human subjects, he was ready to settle for a speeding ticket. Everything was squeaky clean, well-documented, and to-the-book. Rumors about this empire being built on the dead bodies of vulnerable innocents, were they really just rumors?

No, Eddie wasn't ready to give up just yet. Maybe Drake was just good at hiding the evidence, perhaps he was looking in the wrong place. Just as he was planning his next move a voice called out from behind him. "A-hem."

Eddie slowly turned around and found himself face-to-face with, by his research, the head of the scientist here at the Life Foundation, Dr. Dora Skirth. "Yes? How may I help you?" he said with such a steady voice and smooth confidence that one would easily believe he was right where he was supposed to be.

Unfortunately, his opponent this time wasn't going to be fooled so easily with just good acting. "I was just wondering what you were doing here, Dr…Black," said Dr. Skirth as she held the employee tag in front of her. "In fact, I don't think I recognize you, Dr. Black, are you new here?"

"Yeah, just started today actually. I wasn't sure how about the company's documentation policies, so I decided to come here to check out how it was done for some of the past projects."

"Is that so? Which project are you working on, if you don't mind me asking?"

"The pancreatic cancer cure. You know our boss, not happy with just doubling the life expectancy."

"Triple. You are dedicated; I'll give you that much. You even dressed the part," said Dr. Skirth as she walked up and snatched the fake glasses Eddie was wearing. "You're that reporter on TV with his own show, right?"

"Wow, I must admit, believe it or not, you are the first person to ever recognize me when I have those glasses on."

"Call me perceptive."

"Very much so."

"But flattery won't get you out of this." Caught dead in the water. Should he make a run for it? Not much of a point if she already identified him. The doctor in front of him sighed deeply, "I should report you to security for this, but I know why you are here. You probably believe those online rumors about the Life Foundation and want to expose us, is that right?"

"I don't deny it."

"How about this then? I'll take you anywhere you want to go in this facility and answer any questions you may have, within my rights. Then, you can go back and instead of slandering us, write about the legitimacy of our practice."

Eddie nearly started jumping up and down in excitement. This was way more than he could have possibly achieved alone and he certainly wasn't one to pass up on opportunities like this. "Where would you like to visit first?"

"How about the place where you guys perform human experiments."

"Very funny, Mr. Brock."

"Oh does that part of the tour come after the body disposal room or the legal department where I sign all my human rights away?" He thought he truly messed up when his guide stopped in her tracks. He could never help himself when teasing people and always took it a little too far.

"Actually, it comes after our investigative journalist torture room." The statement was out of the left field but the part that shocked Eddie the most was the sweet and innocent smile Dr. Skirth said it with which made him begin to question whether they really had an investigative journalist torture room or not.

After a comprehensive tour of the facility and asking every single question under the sun that he could come up with, Eddie finally yielded. He tested her with all the tricks in his book, looking for any slip that there may be something beyond what she was telling him, but she passed every test with flying color. "Well, Dr. Skirth, you've sold me. You're either the best liar in this universe or the Life Foundation is indeed clean."

"I'm happy I was able to change your mind. I respect what you do Mr. Brock, I really do. But I want you to know that I would not be working here if I didn't believe Carlton Drake is trying his best every day to improve the quality of life for all of us. So instead of trying to bring him down, support him. I know an article from you will have to pull to stop other reporters from slandering us further."

Looking at the conviction from her eyes, Eddie knew that what she said came from her heart. "I understand. I'm a man of my word, I'll make sure to do right by the Life Foundation name."

It had been some time since the press conference was wrapped up when Eddie Brock left, so Dr. Dora Skirth decided to go find Carlton Drake. Despite it being a grueling session of non-stop tough questions, rather than taking a break, Drake was participating in yet another kids tour with an enthusiasm that she sometimes wished he had with the adults. "Very soon, another Life Foundation rocket will be sent on an exploratory mission. And that's how, one day, we might all live in space."

The statement earned the awe-filled exclamation from his young audience. "Cool, huh? And now that I've shown you some of the cool stuff that we do here. I'm hoping I've inspired each and every one of you to go out there and create things others have only dreamt of."

"Mr. Drake?" asked one of the girls shyly. "If we live in space, would we be living with aliens?"

To her embarrassment, the rest of the group began to ridicule her. "That's ridiculous, how could we possibly live with aliens?"

"Well why not?" said Drake as he silenced the rest of the group. "I, for one, think that we can have a symbiotic relationship with any life form that lives out there. We can learn from them and maybe, they can even learn from us." He gestured toward the little girl to come forward. "What's your name?"

"Allie," said the little girl who was on the brink of tears.

"It's okay Allie. You know, sometimes that's what people do. They try and silence those of us who ask questions. But you know what? In the end, we're the ones who change the world," he said as he removed the Life Foundation badge pin he wore and put it in her hands. The little girl's tears went away and were instantly replaced with a big smile.

"You know, our staff would probably cry tears of joy if you did that with any one of them," said Dr. Skirth as she approached him after the kids left.

"The people who work with us are the ones who carry the present. Those kids, they're the ones who will carry the future. They require more care than we do. But enough of that," said Drake as he clapped his hands together, "it's high time I meet our new alien friends."

* * *

Author's Note: Hope I didn't keep you guys waiting too long? Who am I kidding? I definitively did. For those of you that are still here, let me know what you guys think so far. Do you guys like the slight tweaks to Dora Skirth and Drake's character so far?


End file.
